Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, signing a peace agreement with the UAE and Bahrain in Washington in the presence of US President Donald Trump, ecstatically made the demagogic announcement: “This day is a turning point in history. This heralds a new dawn for peace.” And, no less bombastically, the American President stated: “We are…
The situation in the Middle East has been blocked since the Oslo Accords signed by Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in 1993. They were supplemented by the Jericho-Gaza Agreement, which recognizes certain prerogatives of the Palestinian Authority, and the Wadi Araba Agreements, which concluded peace between Israel and Jordan. At the time, the Israeli government…
The Trump administration, desperate for some good news, just manufactured its own news by confecting a ‘peace’ deal between Israel and a bunch of pipsqueak Arab monarchies – just in time for November US elections. The Gulf monarchies – the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain – that signed this agreement are so frightened of neighboring…
A close read of the agreement between the United Arab Emirates and Israel suggests that the Jewish state has won far more than diplomatic recognition. It won acknowledgement of its claim to historic Jewish rights. By the same token, the UAE has received a significant boost to project itself as a leader in inter-faith dialogue….
The longstanding involvement of the United States in the conflict in Yemen is facing renewed scrutiny. On September 16, State Department officials testified before the House Foreign Affairs Committee about whether the State Department misled Congress — and the American people — by circumventing controls designed to limit arms sales and ensure congressional oversight. The…
It is odd that the White House is gloating over its claimed peace agreement in the Middle East at the same time as one of the signatories is bombing Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. It all suggests that peace in the region will exclude designated enemies and the friends of those enemies, since the ties among…
